Simon & Garfunkel, "The Boxer"
So, we rise from the rubble...
Monday, March 1, 2021
"Excellence..."
"Excellence Is not a skill. It is an attitude"
- Ralph Marston
"Ain't no man can avoid being born average,
but there ain't no man got to be common."
- Satchell Paige
"What 'Normal' Are We Returning To? The Depression Nobody Dares Acknowledge"
"What 'Normal' Are We Returning To?
he Depression Nobody Dares Acknowledge"
by Charles Hugh Smith
"Even as the chirpy happy-talk of a return to normal floods the airwaves, what nobody dares acknowledge is that "normal" for a rising number of Americans is the social depression of downward mobility and social defeat. Downward mobility is not a new trend - it's simply accelerating. As this RAND Corporation report documents, ("Trends in Income From 1975 to 2018") $50 trillion in earnings has been transferred to the Financial Aristocracy from the bottom 90% of American households over the past 45 years.
Time magazine's article on the report is remarkably direct: "The Top 1% of Americans Have Taken $50 Trillion From the Bottom 90% - And That's Made the U.S. Less Secure." "The $50 trillion transfer of wealth the RAND report documents has occurred entirely within the American economy, not between it and its trading partners. No, this upward redistribution of income, wealth, and power wasn't inevitable; it was a choice - direct result of the trickle-down policies we chose to implement since 1975.
We chose to cut taxes on billionaires and to deregulate the financial industry. We chose to allow CEOs to manipulate share prices through stock buybacks, and to lavishly reward themselves with the proceeds. We chose to permit giant corporations, through mergers and acquisitions, to accumulate the vast monopoly power necessary to dictate both prices charged and wages paid. We chose to erode the minimum wage and the overtime threshold and the bargaining power of labor. For four decades, we chose to elect political leaders who put the material interests of the rich and powerful above those of the American people."
I've been digging into downward mobility and social depression for years: "Are You Really Middle Class?" The reality is that the middle class has been reduced to the sliver just below the top 5% - if we use the standards of the prosperous 1960s as a baseline.
The downward mobility isn't just financial - it's a decline in political power, control of one's work and ownership of income-producing assets. This article reminds us of what the middle class once represented: "What Middle Class?" How bourgeois America is getting recast as a proletariat.
This reappraisal of the American Dream is also triggering a reappraisal of the middle class in the decades of widespread prosperity: "The Myth of the Middle Class: Have Most Americans Always Been Poor?"
Downward mobility excels in creating and distributing what I term social defeat: In my lexicon, social defeat is the spectrum of anxiety, insecurity, chronic stress, fear and powerlessness that accompanies declining financial security and social status.
Downward mobility and social defeat lead to social depression. Here are the conditions that characterize social depression:
1. High expectations of endlessly rising prosperity instilled as a birthright no longer align with economy reality.
2. Part-time and unemployed people are marginalized, not just financially but socially.
3. Widening income/wealth disparity as those in the top 10% pull away from the bottom 90%.
4. A systemic decline in social/economic mobility as it becomes increasingly difficult to move from dependence on the state or one's parents to financial independence.
5. A widening disconnect between higher education and employment: a college/university degree no longer guarantees a stable, good-paying job.
6. A failure in the Status Quo institutions and mainstream media to recognize social depression as a reality.
7. A systemic failure of imagination within state and private-sector institutions on how to address social depression issues.
8. The abandonment of middle class aspirations: young people no longer aspire to (or cannot afford) consumerist status symbols such as luxury autos or conventional homeownership.
9. A generational abandonment of marriage, families and independent households as these are no longer affordable to those with part-time or unstable employment.
10. A loss of hope in the young generations as a result of the above conditions.
The rising tide of collective anger arising from social depression is visible in many places: road rage, violent street clashes between groups seething for a fight, the destruction of friendships for holding "incorrect" ideological views, and so on.
A coarsening of the entire social order is increasingly visible: "The Age of Rudeness." "Depressive thoughts (and the emotions they generate) tend to be self-reinforcing, and this is why it's so difficult to break out of depression once in its grip.
One part of the healing process is to expose the sources of anger that we are repressing. As psychiatrist Karen Horney explained in her 1950 masterwork, "Neurosis and Human Growth: The Struggle Towards Self-Realization," anger at ourselves sometimes arises from our failure to live up to the many "shoulds" we've internalized, and the idealized track we've laid out for ourselves and our lives.
The article "The American Dream Is Killing Us" does a good job of explaining how our failure to obtain the expected rewards of "doing all the right things" (getting a college degree, working hard, etc.) breeds resentment and despair.
Since we did the "right things," the system "should" deliver the financial rewards and security we expected. This systemic failure to deliver the promised rewards is eroding the social contract and social cohesion. Fewer and fewer people have a stake in the system. We are increasingly angry at the system, but we reserve some anger for ourselves, because the mass-media trumpets how well the economy is doing and how some people are doing extremely well. Naturally, we wonder, why them and not us? The failure is thus internalized.
One response to this sense that the system no longer works as advertised is to seek the relative comfort of echo chambers - places we can go to hear confirmation that this systemic stagnation is the opposing ideological camp's fault.
Part of the American Exceptionalism we hear so much about is a can-do optimism: set your mind to it and everything is possible. The failure to prosper as anticipated is generating a range of negative emotions that are "un-American": complaining that you didn't get a high-paying secure job despite having a college degree (or advanced degree) sounds like sour-grapes: the message is you didn't work hard enough, you didn't get the right diploma, etc.
It can't be the system that's failed, right?
I discuss this in my book "Why Our Status Quo Failed and Is Beyond Reform": the top 10% who are benefiting mightily dominate politics and the media, and their assumption is: the system is working great for me, so it must be working great for everyone. This implicit narrative carries an implicit accusation that any failure is the fault of the individual, not the system.
The inability to express our despair and anger generates depression. Some people will redouble their efforts, others will seek to lay the blame on "the other" (some external group) and others will give up. What few people will do is look at the sources of systemic injustice and inequality.
Perhaps we need an honest national dialog about declining expectations, rising inequality and the failure of the status quo that avoids polarization and the internalization trap (i.e. it's your own fault you're not well-off).
We need to value honesty above fake happy-talk. Once we can speak honestly, there will be a foundation for optimism."
Sunday, February 28, 2021
Must Watch! “Don’t Be Delusional, System Will Fail You”
Jeremiah Babe,
“Don’t Be Delusional, System Will Fail You”
"Eviction Moratorium Ruled Unconstitutional, Largest Tsunami Of Evictions In U.S. History Incoming"
Full screen mode recommended.
"Eviction Moratorium Ruled Unconstitutional,
Largest Tsunami Of Evictions In U.S. History Incoming"
by Epic Economist
"Right after the burst of the sanitary outbreak, a federal eviction moratorium was put into place to avoid the massive displacement of American renters amid a ravaging health crisis. The order has prevented landlords from evicting millions of tenants that were behind on their rent payments. On the other hand, all the rental debt accumulated since then didn't go away, and tenants are expected to pay for it at some point. Conversely, small landlords were sent to the brink of financial ruin after the measure was implemented, and many filed lawsuits against the moratorium, alleging it wasn't legal while also questioning CDC's authority to issue such a decree.
Housing experts started to sound red alerts for a massive homelessness crisis in case the order expired or was removed, which prompted the government to extend the moratorium twice. However, last week, a federal judge in the Eastern District of Texas named John Campbell Barker finally heard landlords pleading, and now it's official: the moratorium was ruled unconstitutional, which means a tragic eviction tsunami is about to start. That's what we're going to expose in this video.
Last Thursday, John Campbell Barker, a judge in the Eastern District of Texas, issued the 21-page ruling responding to a lawsuit from a group of landlords and property managers. “The federal government cannot say that it has ever before invoked its power over interstate commerce to impose a residential eviction moratorium,” Barker wrote in his decision, remarking that it did not do so during the Spanish Flu health crisis or during the Great Depression.
Although the order has helped millions of Americans to stay housed throughout the health crisis and one of the toughest winters ever recorded in all U.S. history, it also caused acute financial distress for many landlords, especially those who run small and mom-and-pop properties. Nearly half of the 49 million rental units in the U.S. are owned by individuals, who usually offer more affordable housing alternatives inside their own communities.
Such small landlords have been particularly hard-hit by the consequences brought on by the health crisis, having to bear an enormous financial burden and left to deal with a responsibility that should have been properly addressed by the government. They are essentially at risk of losing their properties or having to face foreclosure since they have become unable to keep up with their mortgage payments. In that way, they are also on the brink of losing their main asset and their primary source of income.
At the same time, the real estate crisis has also been fueled by businesses' rental debt, with many filing for bankruptcy since they couldn't make enough revenue to afford their maintenance bills. That is to say, the tsunami of bankruptcies happening since the burst of the crisis is directly impacting the real estate sector just as well, and according to several experts, the worst may be yet to come.
Recent data exposes that while in 2019 there were 5,236 Chapter 11 filings, last year there were 6,917, which is roughly 30 percent higher than any of the previous four years.Considering bankruptcy filings underscore other signs of economic pain, researchers with the firm explained that the circumstances might get much more troublesome over the next months. Bankruptcies resultant from the 2007 financial crisis didn’t peak until 2010.
The record low-interest rates that kept the markets heated and enabled the formation of several bubbles in the housing and stock markets, may undergo a fast increase as the economy reopens in the second half of 2021. As we mentioned in previous videos, chaos has returned to Wall Street as overly-inflated stock prices are finally being confronted by our bleak economic reality. Last Friday, the Dow declined another 469 points.
Multiple investors can already feel that a whole lot more pain is coming, that's why they already began another major sell-off of Big Tech stocks and started to pursue safer assets. As our economy in the process of crumbling all around us, and a stock market crash is imminent, while the housing market bubble is quickly expanding, and, more worryingly, a considerable part of our population may lose their homes and inevitably enter a poverty spiral that could lead them to financial ruin, we can't afford to ignore the early warning signs to the next “trigger events” that will hit us in 2021 and beyond. Unfortunately, the troubles experienced in 2020 were just the beginning, and we still have enormous challenges ahead of us."
"A Look to the Heavens"
“This pretty, open cluster of stars, M34, is about the size of the Full Moon on the sky. Easy to appreciate in small telescopes, it lies some 1,800 light-years away in the constellation Perseus. At that distance, M34 physically spans about 15 light-years. Formed at the same time from the same cloud of dust and gas, all the stars of M34 are about 200 million years young.
But like any open star cluster orbiting in the plane of our galaxy, M34 will eventually disperse as it experiences gravitational tides and encounters with the Milky Way's interstellar clouds and other stars. Over four billion years ago, our own Sun was likely formed in a similar open star cluster.”
Paulo Coelho, "Be Like a River"
by Paulo Coelho
“A river never passes the same place twice,” says a philosopher. “Life is like a river,” says another philosopher, and we draw the conclusion that this is the metaphor that comes closest to the meaning of life. Consequently, it is always good to remember during all the year:
A] We are always doing things for the first time. While we move between our source (birth) to our destination (death), the landscape will always be new. We should face these novelties with joy, not with fear – because it is useless to fear what cannot be avoided. A river never stops running.
B] In a valley we walk slower. When everything around us becomes easier, the waters grow calm, we become more open, fuller and more generous.
C] Our banks are always fertile. Vegetation only grows where there is water. Whoever comes into contact with us needs to understand that we are there to give the thirsty something to drink.
D] Stones should be avoided. It is obvious that water is stronger than granite, but it takes time for this to happen. It is no good letting yourself be overcome by stronger obstacles, or trying to fight against them – that is a useless waste of energy. It is best to understand where the way out is, and then move forward.
E] Hollows call for patience. All of a sudden the river enters a sort of hole and stops running as joyfully as before. At such moments the only way out is to count on the help of time. When the right moment comes the hollow fills up and the water can flow ahead. In the place of the ugly, lifeless hole there now stands a lake that others can contemplate with joy.
F] We are one. We were born in a place that was meant for us, which will always keep us supplied with enough water so that when confronted with obstacles or depression we have the necessary patience or strength to move forward. We begin our course in a soft and fragile manner, where even a simple leaf can stop us. Nevertheless, as we respect the mystery of the source that gave us life, and trust in eternal wisdom, little by little we gain all that we need to pursue our path.
G] Although we are one, soon we shall be many. As we travel on, the waters of other springs come closer, because that is the best path to follow. Then we are no longer just one, but many – and there comes a moment when we feel lost. However, “all rivers flow to the sea.” It is impossible to remain in our solitude, no matter how romantic that may seem. When we accept the inevitable encounter with other springs, we eventually understand that this makes us much stronger, we get around obstacles or fill in the hollows in far less time and with greater ease.
H] We are a means of transportation. Of leaves, boats, ideas. May our waters always be generous, may be always be able to carry ahead everything or everyone that needs our help.
I] We are a source of inspiration. And so, let us leave the final words to the Brazilian poet, Manuel Bandeira:
“To be like a river that flows
silent through the night,
not fearing the darkness and
reflecting any stars high in the sky.
And if the sky is filled with clouds,
the clouds are water like the river, so
without remorse reflect them too.”
"With The Years..."
“I was as afraid as the next man in my time and maybe more so. But with the years, fear had come to be regarded as a form of stupidity to be classed with overdrafts, acquiring a venereal disease or eating candies. Fear is a child's vice and while I loved to feel it approach, as one does with any vice, it was not for grown men and the only thing to be afraid of was the presence of true and imminent danger in a form that you should be aware of and not be a fool if you were responsible for others.”
- Ernest Hemingway, "True at First Light”
The Poet: A. J. Constance, "All Of Us Here On This Spinning Blue World"
"All of Us Here On This Spinning Blue World"
"Let's not plan too much
or expect
or promise
or say how much
or how little
or outline how things must be
or how they must not be.
All of us here on this beautiful
spinning blue world,
let's just love each other
from one millisecond to the next
as much as we can."
- A. J. Constance
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Full screen recommended.
The Moody Blues, "Blue World"
"We All Know This..."
“What happens to people living in a society where everyone in power is lying, stealing, cheating and killing, and in our hearts we all know this, but the consequences of facing all these lies are so monstrous, we keep on hoping that maybe the corporate government administration and media are on the level with us this time. Americans remind me of survivors of domestic abuse. This is always the hope that this is the very, very, very last time one’s ribs get re-broken again.”
- Inga Muscio
"Of All Tyrannies..."
"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience. They may be more likely to go to Heaven yet at the same time likelier to make a Hell of earth. This very kindness stings with intolerable insult. To be "cured" against one's will and cured of states which we may not regard as disease is to be put on a level of those who have not yet reached the age of reason or those who never will; to be classed with infants, imbeciles, and domestic animals. "
- C.S. Lewis
“What Doesn’t Kill You Can Make You Stronger”
“What Doesn’t Kill You Can Make You Stronger”
by Mark Manson
“Each week, I send you three potentially life-changing ideas to help you be a slightly less awful human being. This week we’re talking about: 1) post-traumatic growth, 2) living in the age of entitlement, and 3) the world really has become smaller. Let’s get into it.
1. What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger – A few weeks ago, I wrote a newsletter discussing the expanding definitions of words such as “trauma,” “violence,” and “harm” and how these expansions of definition in our culture, at a certain point, begin to have adverse effects. Several readers were skeptical of this claim. They argued that trauma is always bad and that we should combat it regardless of how it arises. So I’d like to spend some time today discussing why this may not be totally true. As with most things in life (and especially in psychology), trauma is complicated. In its first century of existence, the field of psychology mostly studied what we loosely refer to as “trauma” today. Freud was obsessed with sexual traumas… in kind of a creepy way.
After World War I, European militaries debated the existence and causes of “shell shock,” as if having two-ton bombs exploding over you every day for four years straight was supposed to have no effect on a person. In the ’40s and ’50s, B.F. Skinner tortured rats to see how it inspired and inhibited behaviors. In the ’60s, R.D. Laing proposed that much of what was assumed to be mental illness was actually people’s coping mechanisms to deal with their inner traumas.
But it wasn’t until 1980 that “Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder” finally entered the official lexicon. It’s been a mainstay ever since. In the 80s and 90s, we discovered that PTSD symptoms don’t just occur in war veterans (although that’s where they are still most common). They can happen to survivors of domestic abuse, sexual abuse, or even things such as bullying or divorce or a horrendous car accident. The world was just one big oyster of trauma and we could all have a piece of it. One study estimated that 75% of all people experience at least one traumatic event in their lifetime. Most of us will experience many more.
But here’s the stat that you don’t hear as often. Most people who experience trauma later report benefitting from their traumatic experience. Yes, you read that right. Most of us, when asked later on, actually reported not only benefitting from our traumatic experience but being better because of it. For example, when researchers surveyed New Yorkers just two months after the 9/11 attacks, 58% of them reported benefits from the experience. You see these results everywhere, from shipwreck survivors to Holocaust survivors. From Maya Angelou to Christopher Reeves. Most people, in the long run, feel that they are better off for their traumatic experiences, not worse. This is why trauma is weird. On the one hand, we wish it didn’t happen. It was horribly painful. On the other hand, we’re kind of glad it did. It made us who we are today. It made us stronger, more resilient, more grateful for everything we have.
This is the experience of what’s become known as “post-traumatic growth” (PTG), and despite being far less “popular” than PTSD, it turns out that PTG is far more common. One trauma researcher with fifty years of experience said that of all the people who experience trauma, he estimates 30% suffer from PTSD, and 70% experience some form of personal growth from the event. A minority of people who suffer a traumatic experience develop PTSD. Yet a majority of people experience PTG. It’s just that we don’t talk about it. It’s not cool to say, “Hey, you know what? I’m such a better person since my wife died.” No. That would be f*****g horrible.
But when researchers look at what leads people to experience PTG instead of PTSD, you know what one of the key factors is? Their beliefs about the traumatic event itself. People who believe their traumatic experience will be an opportunity for growth are generally the ones who grow from it. People who believe their traumatic experience will ruin their lives are the ones who feel stuck. (To learn more about post-traumatic growth, check out a post I wrote a while back called “How to Grow from Your Pain“. The book “What Doesn’t Kill Us“, by Stephen Joseph, is a good read on the subject as well.)
Obviously, there are more factors that determine PTG like emotional intelligence, social support, etc. But I’m focusing on the beliefs because this is where my point about definitions comes in. I worry that, as a culture, by expanding our definition of trauma, we are shifting away from seeing it as “a terrible and unfortunate thing that happened,” towards, “something that never should have happened to me and I’m ruined forever.” It’s a subtle and seductive shift in attitude—especially because it grants one a feeling of moral righteousness—but it has hugely negative repercussions.
The fact is: our relationship to pain is largely determined by our beliefs about pain. And when we believe that pain is permanent and debilitating, then it becomes permanently debilitating.
2. The Age of Entitlement – In “The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck“, I defined entitlement as believing that one deserves to never suffer and/or be forced to overcome hardship. I also argued that more and more, we are living in a culture defined by entitlement. Knowing what we know about post-traumatic growth, one can see how an entitled mindset prevents any possibility of growth from one’s trauma or pain. If your traumatic experience is seen as something thrust upon you unfairly and the world should reconfigure itself to resolve it, then you’re essentially dooming yourself from ever overcoming that pain.
I think we’ve all watched a prime case study of this play out publicly in the news and social media the past six months. Whether it’s the entitled idiots starting fistfights at Walmart because they don’t want to wear a mask, or the entitled idiots trying to take down a statue of Abraham Lincoln because, like, racism or something—I’m developing calluses on my palms from slamming them into my face so many times.
One of Freud’s better ideas was that there is an inherent and constant tension between the individual and society. By living in large groups, we increase our survival and quality of life. But to live in large groups, Freud said, each individual must suppress parts of their own self-interests and desires. This suppression then gives us all a little bit of a complex and makes us neurotic about certain things (like sex, for one).
Basically: living in a community has benefits, but those benefits require that each individual makes sacrifices. Politics is then the discussion of these individual sacrifices and whether they are worth it for everybody or not. Because this is a constant tension, politics is an infinite game, unwinnable and perpetual, defining and redefining the terms of our coexistence one bullshit, bloated piece of legislation at a time.
In this arrangement, left-wingers tend to be more concerned with the distribution of benefits from everybody’s sacrifice. Lefties want to make sure that no one is getting completely hosed. Therefore, lefties tend to believe that making more individual sacrifices is worth it if it means the benefits become more evenly distributed throughout society.
Right-wingers, on the other hand, are primarily concerned with individuals giving up as little as possible. They intuitively recognize that, at some point, if you’re giving up so much to the collective, then it stops being worth it. Therefore, righties tend to believe that an imperfect system is worth it if it means guaranteeing individual liberty.
We need both of these dispositions, of course. We need people checking to make sure our benefits are getting distributed fairly. We also need people checking to make sure that individuals aren’t being asked to give up too much. The problem is when entitlement comes in. It corrupts both of these attitudes.
The entitled left-wing attitude is the belief that no inequality should exist anywhere – that everyone should receive the exact same benefits at all times. This is unreasonable because people are simply different. They have different talents, experiences, histories, and beliefs about the world. Therefore, different outcomes will be natural and expected.
The entitled right-wing attitude is the belief that no individual freedom should ever be given up anywhere – that as long as I’m not overtly hurting somebody else, I should be free to do whatever the hell I want. This is also unreasonable. Our actions affect each other indirectly and often in subtle and surprising ways. This could be something as complex as climate change or some other Tragedy of the Commons scenario. It could also be something as simple as being asked to wear a mask.
My concern with the expansion of the definitions of words such as “trauma,” “violence,” “prejudice,” and “oppression” is that it opens a very wide door into promoting entitled political mindsets. If being asked to wear a mask in Walmart becomes an accepted definition of “oppression,” and being punished for destroying federal property is commonly interpreted as “fascism,” well… then, we’re in for a very, very long decade.
3. The world really is getting smaller – On a lighter note, in the early 2000s, one of the hip, cool takes on the internet was that, by connecting everyone, it would make the world “smaller.” Well, it turns out that there’s some really interesting data that suggests this is true.
You’ve probably heard the term “six degrees of separation.” The idea is that each person in the world is connected to every other person in the world by no more than six social connections. Researchers even tested this in the 1960s and found that it was roughly true. But in the social media age, one would guess that since we are all acquainted with so many more people from so many different parts of the world, that there would be fewer links between any two random people.
Facebook recently decided to analyze this. And who better? They already know what my wife and I talked about last night and what underwear I want to buy next January. Go for it, Zuck. Sure enough, after analyzing 721 million people and their connections, Facebook discovered that, as of 2016, on average, two people in the world are separated by 3.57 people. So, call it “Three-point-five-seven degrees of separation.” Err… not quite as catchy, is it? See you next week. “
“The Waiting Place”
“The Waiting Place”
“…for people just waiting.
Waiting for a train to go
or a bus to come, or a plane to go
or the mail to come, or the rain to go
or the phone to ring, or the snow to snow
or the waiting around for a Yes or No
or waiting for their hair to grow.
Everyone is just waiting.
Waiting for the fish to bite
or waiting for the wind to fly a kite
or waiting around for Friday night
or waiting, perhaps, for their Uncle Jake
or a pot to boil, or a Better Break
or a string of pearls, or a pair of pants
or a wig with curls, or Another Chance.
Everyone is just waiting.
NO! That’s not for you!
Somehow you’ll escape
all that waiting and staying
You’ll find the bright places
where Boom Bands are playing.”
- Dr. Seuss
"Covid-19 Pandemic Updates 2/28/21"
"Covid-19 Pandemic Updates 2/28/21"
○
"Is This Why 'New COVID Cases' Are Crashing?"
by OffGuardian
"The scary red numbers are all going down. Check any newspaper or covid tracking website you want. Cases. Deaths. Hospitalizations. They’re all going down, sharply, and have been for weeks, especially in the US and UK. So, why would that be? Pundits across the media world have made suggestions – from vaccines to lockdowns – but there’s only one that makes any real sense.
It's Not Vaccines: The assumption most people would make, and would be encouraged to make by the talking heads and media experts, is that the various “vaccines” have taken effect and stopped the spread of the “virus”. Is this the case? No, no it’s not.
The decline started in mid-January, far too early for any vaccination program to have any effect. Many experts said as much: "Dr. Wafaa El-Sadr, professor of epidemiology and medicine at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health, said the falling case numbers can’t be attributed to the COVID-19 vaccine, because not even a tenth of the population has been vaccinated, according to the CDC."
Further, the drop is happening simultaneously in different countries all around the world, and not every country is vaccinating at the same rate or even using the same vaccine. So no, the “vaccines” are not causing the drop.
It's Not Lockdown Either: Another suspect is the lockdown, with blaring propaganda stating that all the various government-imposed house arrests and “distancing” measures have finally had an impact. That’s not it either. Sweden, famously, never locked down at all. Yet their “cases” and “Covid related deaths” have been dropping exactly in parallel with the UK:
Clearly, if countries that never locked down are also seeing declines in case numbers, the lockdown cannot be causing them. So what is?
The WHO PCR Test Guidelines: Maybe for our answer, we should look at the date the decline started. Observe this graph:
As you can see, the global decline in “Covid deaths” starts in mid-to-late January. What else happened around that time? Well, on January 13th the WHO published a memo regarding the problem of asymptomatic cases being discovered by PCR tests, and suggesting any asymptomatic positive tests be repeated. This followed up their previous memo, instructing labs around the world to use lower cycle thresholds (CT values) for PCR tests, as values over 35 could produce false positives.
Essentially, in two memos the WHO ensured future testing would be less likely to produce false positives and made it much harder to be labelled an “asymptomatic case”. In short, logic would suggest we’re not in fact seeing a “decline in Covid cases” or a “decrease in Covid deaths” at all. What we’re seeing is a decline in perfectly healthy people being labelled “covid cases” based on a false positive from an unreliable testing process. And we’re seeing fewer people dying of pneumonia, cancer or other disease have “Covid19” added to their death certificate based on testing criteria designed to inflate the pandemic. Just as we at OffG predicted would happen the moment the memo was published."
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Feb 28, 2021 12:22 AM ET:
The coronavirus pandemic has sickened more than 113,777,400
people, according to official counts, including 28,572,021 Americans.
Globally at least 2,524,800 have died.
Feb. 28, 2021 12:22 AM ET:
Coronavirus in the U.S.: Latest Map and Case Count○
"The COVID Tracking Project"
Every day, our volunteers compile the latest numbers on tests, cases,
hospitalizations, and patient outcomes from every US state and territory.
- https://covidtracking.com/
○
Every day, our volunteers compile the latest numbers on tests, cases,
hospitalizations, and patient outcomes from every US state and territory.
- https://covidtracking.com/
○
○
Feb. 22, 2021, 8:40 AM ET
○Where I Live:
2/27/2021: "Cases are very high but have decreased over the past two weeks. The numbers of hospitalized Covid patients and deaths in the Pinal County area have also fallen. The test positivity rate in Pinal County is very high, suggesting that cases are being significantly undercounted. We’ve recommended additional precautions."
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Gregory Mannarino, “Markets, A Look Ahead: Raise Your Awareness Now!”
"Down the rabbit hole of psychopathic greed and insanity...
Only the consequences are real - to you!
Your guide:
Gregory Mannarino,
“Markets, A Look Ahead: Raise Your Awareness Now!”
Saturday, February 27, 2021
Musical Interlude: Peder B. Helland, "Beautiful Piano Music 24/7 • Relax, Study, Sleep"
Full screen recommended.
Peder B. Helland,
"Beautiful Piano Music 24/7 • Relax, Study, Sleep"
"Eviction Moratorium Ruled Unconstitutional, Largest Tsunami Of Evictions In U.S. History Incoming"
"Eviction Moratorium Ruled Unconstitutional,
Largest Tsunami Of Evictions In U.S. History Incoming"
by Michael Snyder
Ever since last summer, a federal moratorium on evictions has prevented landlords from evicting millions of tenants that are behind on their rent payments. This moratorium has caused extreme financial distress for many landlords, but it has also kept us from witnessing millions upon millions of Americans being thrown out into the cold streets. Of course this moratorium on evictions was never actually legal, and it was just a matter of time before it was challenged in front of a federal judge that still had respect for the U.S. Constitution. On Thursday, a federal judge in the Eastern District of Texas named John Campbell Barker ruled that the federal moratorium is completely unconstitutional:
"J. Campbell Barker, a Trump-nominated judge in the Eastern District of Texas, issued the 21-page ruling Thursday in response to a lawsuit from a group of landlords and property managers. “The federal government cannot say that it has ever before invoked its power over interstate commerce to impose a residential eviction moratorium,” Barker wrote, noting that it did not do so during the Spanish Flu pandemic or during the Great Depression. “The federal government has not claimed such a power at any point during our nation’s history until last year.” But Barker did not issue any sort of an injunction, and so the moratorium is still in effect for the moment. In his ruling, Barker expressed his belief that the defendants will “respect the declaratory judgment” and will willingly withdraw the moratorium on their own… The scope of the order is unclear. Barker wrote that given “defendants’ representations to the court, it is ‘anticipated that [defendants] would respect the declaratory judgment.’”
Federal officials could attempt to drag their feet, but the current moratorium is set to expire on March 31st anyway. So whether it happens immediately or in a few weeks, the federal moratorium on evictions is ending. Of course some states have their own moratoriums in place, and Barker noted that those are constitutional. So renters in those states will still have at least some protection moving forward. But for most of the country, things are about to change in a major way.
According to one recent study, a whopping 10 million U.S. households are currently behind on their rent payments: "An analysis released last month by Moody’s Analytics and the Urban Institute said that some 10 million renters are behind on paying rent and risk being evicted. Moreover, the typical delinquent renter is almost four months and $5,600 behind on monthly rent and utility payments as of January, according to the analysis. To put that into some perspective, approximately seven million households lost their homes in foreclosure during the five darkest years of the global financial crisis,” the researchers wrote. “Here we have 10 million families facing a similar fate over a matter of months.”
Even if rent moratoriums remain in place in some states for the foreseeable future, we are still going to see millions upon millions of households evicted here in 2021. It will be the largest tsunami of evictions in U.S. history, and homelessness is going to rise dramatically. Needless to say, it isn’t going to be a happy time.
Meanwhile, we have already been witnessing a tsunami of bankruptcies. In fact, the number of Chapter 11 bankruptcy filings in 2020 was “at least 30 percent higher than any of the previous four years”: "Bankruptcies filed by entertainment companies in 2020 nearly quadrupled, and filings nearly tripled for oil and gas companies, doubled for computer and software companies and were up 50 percent or more for restaurant owners, real estate companies and retailers, compared with 2019, data from the research firm show. There were 5,236 Chapter 11 filings in 2019, but 6,917 last year, a tally at least 30 percent higher than any of the previous four years."
This isn’t what an “economic recovery” looks like. Sadly, the truth of the matter is that the U.S. economy is in the process of melting down all around us, and a whole lot more pain is ahead.
Up until just recently, the stock market had been one of the very few bright spots, but now chaos has returned to Wall Street. On Friday, the Dow was down another 469 points: "The Dow Jones Industrial Average swung wildly Friday to close near its session low as Wall Street struggled to shake off fears of rapidly rising rates.
The blue-chip benchmark ended the volatile session 469.64 points, or 1.5%, to 30,932.37 after trading in the green earlier. The S&P 500 fell 0.5% to 3,811.15 as energy and financial stocks pulled back. The Nasdaq Composite ended the day 0.6% higher at 13,192.34 as Big Tech names rebounded after a large sell-off in the previous session amid surging bond yields. Facebook, Microsoft and Amazon each rose more than 1%. The tech-heavy benchmark gyrated in Friday’s session where it jumped 1.9% at its high and fell as much as 0.7%."
As I discussed yesterday, I do not believe that a massive stock market crash is imminent. But the early warning signs that we are witnessing now should definitely not be ignored. Many are expecting economic conditions in the U.S. to improve as the COVID pandemic fades, but it is inevitable that many more “trigger events” will hit us in 2021 and beyond. Considering how vulnerable we are right now, it certainly isn’t going to take much to send us into a death spiral from which we will never recover.
Unfortunately, it is always those at the very bottom of the economic food chain that get hit the hardest when challenging times arrive. I feel very badly for the landlords that haven’t been able to collect rent for months and months, but I also feel very badly for the millions of Americans that will soon be thrown out into the streets. The economic pain and suffering that we will soon see will be off the charts, and those that are expecting Joe Biden and his minions to save them will be bitterly, bitterly disappointed."
"Has The Great Shaking Of The Financial Markets Finally Begun?"
Full screen recommended.
"Has The Great Shaking Of The Financial Markets Finally Begun?"
by Epic Economist
"Volatility and chaos are sweeping across Wall Street this week, as the Nasdaq has experienced a flash crash, falling more than 5 percent and being on the path to a second consecutive weekly loss, while the bond market has registered an upsurge at levels last seen in November, with the yield on 10-year U.S. Treasuries exceeding 1.6% and set to move even higher in the coming days. Investors have been completely terrified about the idea of a sudden inflation spike since our economy is scheduled to fully reopen this year. A major sell-off has started, and market watchers are truly hoping this is only a temporary blip, otherwise, it may represent the beginning of the great shaking of the financial markets. That's what we're going to analyze in this video.
Ever since the health crisis struck in America, stock prices have continuously climbed, reaching unprecedented highs. However, in real terms, everyone already knew that wasn't going to last very long because valuations quickly started to become unsustainable and completely out of touch with our economic reality. Eventually, the market wouldn't be able to handle the pressure and overinflated prices would have to face a correction. On Thursday, we had the single worst day for stocks in 2021, as a significant surge in bond yields spooked investors, who promptly began to massively dump risk assets, causing U.S. stocks to sharply drop, especially amongst high-flying technology names.
According to recent reports, the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 559.85 points, or 1.8%, to 31,402.01, considerably declining from a record high. While the S&P 500 dropped by 2.5%, to 3,829.34 registering its worst day since January 27. For its part, the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite slipped 3.5% to 13,119.43, recording its biggest sell-off since October 28. All the main averages rapidly plunged, and this collapse was primarily sparked by a jump in the US government bond yields. The 10-year Treasury yield rocketed as high as 1.6%, resulting in a sudden move that some described as a “flash” crash.
Conversely, the main reason why the 10-year US bond yield went up was because investors are fearing inflation in the U.S. will rise in the coming months. They are anticipating that as more and more Americans get vaccinated and resume their usual spending patterns, the consumer demand will increase, but the supply won't be able to meet the growing demand. As a consequence, more money would be poured into the same set of goods and services, which could potentially lead to a surge in prices in general and higher inflation. It's important to remember that a higher inflation means that interest rates all across the economy will climb just as well.
Meanwhile, as the stock market has just started to keep up with our reality, the U.S. economy continues to fall apart all around us. Some economists were thrilled with the decline in jobless claims, but others have been highlighting that the national unemployment rate is masking how much some groups are still struggling in the current recession.
It's important to highlight that the reinsertion in the labor market has been extremely uneven. For White workers, unemployment is much lower, at 5.7%, while the unemployment rate for Black groups was 9.2% in January, and for the Hispanic, the jobless rate was 8.6%, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. In the meantime, economists are alerting that the widespread business shutdowns happening in states severely hit by the ice storms could result in an increase in jobless claims filings over the next weeks.
Just a few days ago, we learned that Fry’s Electronics would abruptly close all of its stores overnight, letting go of all of its staff, and putting an end to nearly four decades in business. With so many iconic businesses disappearing, the American economic landscape definitely won't be the same once the economy reopens.
Our living standards are about to be even more deteriorated while every-day expenses will sharply increase. It is going to get progressively more difficult to afford to live in this country. All evidences point to a societal decay that worsens with each passing day. And, unfortunately, as economic conditions get even darker, that is just going to trigger even more civil agitation, and economic pain. The markets are shaking, the economy is shaking, and if nothing is changed soon enough, everything will implode right before our eyes."
"A Look to the Heavens"
"Barred spiral galaxy NGC 1365 is truly a majestic island universe some 200,000 light-years across. Located a mere 60 million light-years away toward the chemical constellation Fornax, NGC 1365 is a dominant member of the well-studied Fornax Cluster of galaxies. This impressively sharp color image shows the intense, reddish star forming regions near the ends of central bar and along the spiral arms, with details of the obscuring dust lanes cutting across the galaxy's bright core. At the core lies a supermassive black hole.
Astronomers think NGC 1365's prominent bar plays a crucial role in the galaxy's evolution, drawing gas and dust into a star-forming maelstrom and ultimately feeding material into the central black hole."
Chet Raymo, “All Men Have The Stars”
“All Men Have The Stars”
by Chet Raymo
“At the end of his big-bang book “The First Three Minutes”, PDF, physicist Steven Weinberg famously wrote: “The more the universe seems comprehensible, the more it also seems pointless.” His point is this: We have discovered in this century that the human species is just one of billions of species of life on a typical planet near a star that is just one of a trillion stars in a galaxy among hundreds of billions of galaxies. It is no longer possible, he implies, to think that the universe was made for us or that our existence is in any way important on the cosmic scale.
Subsequently, in a book of interviews, Alan Lightman and Roberta Brawer asked 27 top cosmologists what they thought of Weinberg’s remark. Some agreed with Weinberg. Some emphatically disagreed. Responses ranged from traditional religious faith to total skepticism and indifference. Apparently, 27 of the world’s most brilliant mathematicians and physicists are no better than the rest of us at figuring out the human meaning of the universe. It occurred to me that I might confront some ordinary people, kids even, with Weinberg’s remark and record their reactions.
For my first interview I called Molly Bloom, an old friend in Dublin, Ireland. It was very late at night when I spoke to Molly (I had forgotten the five hour time difference). We talked about nature a bit, and what it all might mean. When I quoted Weinberg’s remark to her she responded with some agitation: “…God in heaven,” said Molly, ” there’s nothing like nature the wild mountains then the sea and the waves rushing then the beautiful country with fields of oats and wheat and all kinds of things and all the fine cattle going about that would do your heart good to see rivers and lakes and flowers all sorts of shapes and smells and colors spring up even out of the ditches primroses and violets nature it is as for them saying theres no God I wouldn’t give a snap of my two fingers for all their learning why don’t they go and create something I often asked him atheists or whatever they call themselves go and wash the cobbles off themselves first then they go howling for the priest and they dying and why why because they’re afraid of hell on account of their bad conscience ah yes I know them well who was the first person in the universe before there was anybody that made it all who ah that they don’t know neither do I so there you are they might as well try to stop the sun from rising tomorrow…”
Excited by Molly’s unpunctuated enthusiasm, I gave a call to Huck Finn, a friend of my youth from Hannibal, Missouri. How did he respond to Weinberg’s impression of pointlessness, I asked. Huck was thoughtful, and then answered by recalling something that happened when he and a pal named Jim were drifting down the Mississippi River on a raft. “It’s lovely to live on a raft,” said Huck, his voice choked with nostalgia. “We had the sky up there, all speckled with stars, and we used to lay on our backs and look up at them, and discuss about whether they was made or only just happened.”
“That question is certainly related to Weinberg’s observation,” I suggested, “especially when you consider the size and complexity of the universe. There’s a heck of a lot of stars out there.” “Jim he allowed they was made,” said Huck, “but I allowed they happened; I judged it would have took too long to make so many.”
“Ah, yes,” I said. “Many modern cosmologists would seem to agree with you. The number of stars is staggering.” “Jim said the moon could a laid them,” Huck said. “Well, that looked kind of reasonable, so I didn’t say nothing against it, cause I’ve seen a frog lay most as many.” I laughed: “I don’t think many contemporary cosmologists would accept the frog-moon theory for the origin of stars.”
My conversation with Huck reminded me of another friend of my youth, a kid from an asteroid called B-612, if I remember rightly. I never knew his real name; we called him the Little Prince. Now it happened that he was in the neighborhood for another visit, so I gave him a buzz. We chatted for a while, recalling our earlier affection for one another. Then I quoted Steven Weinberg: “The more the universe seems comprehensible, the more it also seems pointless.”
He laughed, and said, “Where I live everything is so small that I cannot show you where my star is to be found. It is better, like that. My star will be just one of the stars, for you. And so you will love to watch all of the stars in the heavens.” I wasn’t sure I understood his meaning.
“All men have the stars,” he continued, “but they are not the same things for different people. For some, who are travelers, the stars are guides. For others they are no more than little lights in the sky. For others, who are scholars, they are problems.” “Like for my 27 cosmologists,” I ventured.
“All these stars are silent,” said the Little Prince, his voice so soft and gentle I could barely make it out over the noisy telephone line. “You – you alone – will have the stars as no one else has them -” I was still perplexed. I did not exactly see what this had to do with finding a human meaning in the universe of galaxies. “In one of the stars I shall be living,” he said. “In one of them I shall be laughing. And so it will be as if all the stars were laughing when you look at the sky at night…You – only you – will have stars that can laugh!” And he laughed again.”
"Joy, Shipmates, Joy...”
“Night and day the river flows. If time is the mind of space, the River is the soul of the desert. Brave boatmen come, they go, they die, the voyage flows on forever. We are all canyoneers. We are all passengers on this little mossy ship, this delicate dory sailing round the sun that humans call the earth. Joy, shipmates, joy.”
- Edward Abbey
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